Dogfights: War In The Air
by Blahmarrow
Summary: When the skies become shattered in war, nowhere is safe.


"Falco-1! Falco-1! Contacts sighted at vector 067 from your positon. Heading 270, intercept and engage." The Air Traffic Controller alerted me to the enemy formation. At 400 mph, it wouldn't take long to intercept them. Our F-16's were, from what experience we've had with them, effective fighting machines. We've had them for a long time now, five years or so.

"All right guys. Let's go." I said calmly into the radio. It crackled softly as I spoke.

"Falco-2 roger." "Falco-3 roger." Came back as a response. My wingmen, Falco-2 and Falco-3, were some of the ebst pilots around. We were all friends, helping each other when needed, both on the ground and in the air. We banked to our right, towards the enemy formation. I flipped my visor down, and assumed Falco-2 and Falco-3 did the same.

As I flipped the visor down, my veiw darkened notably. The HUD, or Head Up Display, appeared in front of my face a moment later. It displayed my attack angle, current speed, altitude, and availible weapons. The info was shown in a dark green colour. Dark green stood out the most when flying, and made seeing everything easier for the pilot.

We went on in formation, with me in the lead, Falco-2 to my 7 O'Clock, and Falco-3 to my 5 O'Clock. A minute passed, with nothing. A second minute, and then they showed up on my RADAR. Two, three, four, five, six planes in two triangle formations, like ours. They were using MiG-21's though.

The MiG-21 Fishbed was a good airplane for it's time, but that was years ago. Now it might as well have been a flying target for anybody. It had a single engine, a delta style wing, and a varying length nose cone for air feeding at dfferent speeds. These MiG-21's were painted a dessert camo-dark and light browns covered them.

"Cleared to engage." The traffic controller said, sounding slightly worried. "Keep them away from the airport, would you?"

It was Faco-2 who responded, saying "No worry, we'll get em' all. There's enough for two for each of us!" He sounded excited, as if this was somethigng he was waiting for. In fact, it was. He had been sitting by his F-16 for half an hour, saying that it was "only a matter of time before they attack us."

"Split up. Three, go high, take the far ones, break em' up. Two, go low, go for the closest ones, and force them to break formation. Cleared to engage as you wish after that." I ordered them to go after that, and switched the master arms switch-the switch that lets you arm all your weapons- on.

I then turned hard to the right, and then to the left, positioning me right behind them. The far squad broke away, but the closest one just lit their afterburners. They were going to try to out run me.

It didn't work. I aquired a lock on with my AMRAAM missiles. AMRAAMs were deadly mssisle, their name was an acronym. It stood for "Advanced Medium Ranged Air o Air Missiale" I launched one missile, waited a monet, then then another. I said "Fox-1" for each missile launch, to let others know I was firing my weapons, a standard procedure when in combat.

The MiG-21's tried to break away, but were too slow. The closest one burts into flames after getting hit, causing it to lose it's tail section. it started spinning towards the ground, then exploded. The second one also got hit, but this time, it just exploded completley all at once.

"Two bandits down, confirm, over." The tower controller repsonded, sounding a lot more calm than before. "Roger that Falco-1, keep going!"

I pulled back hard on the stick, jerking my plane into a hard climb. The G-force was intense, and my G-suit inflated quickly. I glanced to my right and saw Falco-3 dive down past me.

"Fox 2!" He cried, and a moment later I heard him say "Bandit down, formation is breaking. Turning to engage at will." He was always to the point when in combat.

"Fox 1, 2, guns and everything else!" Falco-2 then said, in a somewhat cheery tone. He was the opposite in combat-he never seemed to realise that he could be killed at any moment.

"One down! Yeah baby!" He said a few moments later. "See ya lata boss!" He broke away and went after the other MiG-21.

"Target down, rejoining Falco-1." Falco-3 said in a calm voice. he came up beside me and tipped his wings back in forth, the in flight way of saluting.

"Aaannnddd Bingo! Two is down, no more bad guys!" Falco-2 said, with much joy. he came up and joined me and Falco-3. We lowered are altitude to just below cloud level, and started back for home.

The air trafic controller spoke up again, sounding relieved. "Picture is clear, come on home guys. Your pay checks are waiting."

"Oh goody!" Yelled Falco-2.

"I'm gonna be loaded now!"


End file.
